1. There are two steps to installing a printer in CUPS - detecting the hardware device and supplying a valid driver package. Just because CUPS detected your printer does not guarantee that it will work. Picking a printer model similar to your own may or may not be successful.

2. Unlike Windows, you should start the install procedure with the printer turned ON.

3. Despite what you may have read, a PPD file by itself is rarely sufficient to install a printer in Puppy. In most cases, you need an additional driver package.

4. Some printer drivers use the /tmp folder, which must have a full set of write permissions. Right-click on the /tmp folder and select Properties. All the "Write" boxes must be checked. This is also true for /dev/null and /var/tmp. Check that /dev/random is all-readable.

5. CUPS will auto-detect some, but not all, networked printers. If yours is not detected, use the following manual install procedure:

a. Run PeasyPort and scan your network for Port 9100. Get the IP address of the printer.
b. Start the CUPS wizard and open the Add Printer page.
c. Select the protocol AppSocket/JetDirect
d. Enter the Connection URI as: socket://aaa.bbb.cc.dd:9100

6. The Puppy Firewall will block access to networked printers. If you want to run the firewall, use a custom install that gives full access to the printer's IP address . Read here.

7. After a scanning session, some HP all-in-one units need to be rebooted before printing will work again.

9. Some Puppies do not recognize parallel port printers. You must run the command "modprobe lp". Add it to the file /etc/rc.d/rc.local and reboot.

10. To save a document as a PDF, use your application's Print > Print to File option instead of CUPS-PDF.

-------------------------

Installing a Printer:

All Puppies come with the Gutenprint driver package which supports many different printers. If your own printer does not have a Gutenprint driver, download one of the driver packages listed below.

You don't need to use the Puppy Printer Wizard to install a printer. Just launch your web browser and go to the CUPS interface at:

Code:

http://localhost:631

Open the Administration tab and select Add Printer or Find New Printers (depending on your CUPS version). If your printer is auto-detected, follow the steps to install it. Then print a test page. In CUPS 1.4, look for this option under the Maintenance drop-down menu.

For a little program that checks the ink levels of your printer, look at InkGUI.

-------------------------

Printing Digital Photos:

A good program for printing digital photos is PeasyPrint. To print on 4x6 photo paper, you will need to change some settings in CUPS. Look under Set Default Options for items like Media Size, Media Type and Print Quality.

Another useful tool for manipulating your photos is RPhoto. It can crop an image in a fixed 2x3 aspect ratio so it is ready to print on 4x6 photo paper. Download an RPhoto PET here. Click the green DOWNLOAD box.

sane-find-scanner (this command is broken in some new Puppies like Tahrpup)
scanimage -L
scanimage --help

For HP scanners, install the hplip-print-scan package. It contains the standard scanner driver used by many HP units. For the HP Scanjet 2400, read here. To do networked scanning with an HP unit, read about Peasyscan below. Also, see #7 from Things to Know above.

Run Xsane from the Graphic menu. Ignore the warning about running as root. Your scanner should be auto-detected.

Peasyscan is a light-weight alternative to Xsane. It uses the same backend tools as Xsane, but with a simpler user interface. Read about it here. Peasyscan is included with newer Puppies.

In Windows, a network printer is identified by its MAC address or NETBIOS name. So a Windows client can always find the printer even if the printer's IP address changes. However, CUPS configures its printers by IP address. If you reset your network and the printer's address changes, you must reinstall it on Puppy client machines.

If it's a standalone printer, give it a static IP address. Or see the procedure here. Use it on Puppy client machines to associate the print server name with its IP address. For a one-click procedure, read here about the IP4CUPS tool.

---------------------------------

Sharing your Puppy Printer with Other Windows or Linux Machines:

Update: In recent versions of CUPS, printer sharing has become problematic. A much simpler method is discussed here. This, along with IP4CUPS, may be the best way to manage your network printers.

Before starting, move the printer to your Puppy machine and install it as a local printer. That way, you can identify the correct driver to use. Then move it back to the Windows machine and delete the local Puppy printer.

Go to your Windows machine and locate its computer name and the name of the shared printer.

Find the computer name under Control Panel > System > Computer Name > Full Computer Name

The printer name is the identifier assigned by Windows. Look for it under the Sharing tab of the printer's properties.

Depending on your Puppy version, there are several CUPS backends for handling Windows shared printers. The preferred choice is smbw_cups_backend-1.5.pet attached below.

Important! If the Windows printer name contains spaces, you must enter it correctly into CUPS. It may be easier to rename the printer in the Windows Sharing dialog without spaces.

Launch CUPS and start adding a printer. (Windows printers are not auto-detected.)

From the Device list, select "Windows/Samba Printer".

Enter the device URI as:

Code:

smbw://COMPUTERNAME/PRINTERNAME

There are several variations to this URI:

1. Your LAN has some non-standard configuration that prevents CUPS from locating the printer. Include your LAN subnet address, like:

Code:

smbw://COMPUTERNAME/PRINTERNAME?192.168.2.0

Note that the last digit is a zero and the question mark is used as a separator. This additional information will help the backend find your Windows printer.

2. If that still doesn't work, use the Windows computer's IP address instead of its name. For example:

Code:

smbw://192.168.2.15/PRINTERNAME

3. The target printer requires authentication (eg. in Windows 7). Set up the URI like:

Code:

smbw://USERNAME:PASSWORD@WORKGROUP/COMPUTERNAME/PRINTERNAME

You MUST provide all five pieces of information.

4. A Linux Samba server can also share printers using the same Windows protocol. You may need a URI like:

Code:

smbw://guest:guest@WORKGROUP/SERVER/PRINTER

-------------------------------------------

Connecting to a Linux Shared Printer

Linux machines share their printers through CUPS with the Internet Printing Protocol. Depending on the version of CUPS running on the remote computer, there are several choices:

1. The remote printer may be auto-detected by Puppy's CUPS so no installation is required. The shared printer will automatically appear in an application's Print dialog.

2. If this doesn't happen, try a manual install on the client machine. In Puppy, run the CUPS wizard and select Add Printer > Internet Printing Protocol. Use a URI like:

Hi. I have a frugal install of lupu 5.1 on an IBM T22 laptop. Previous puppies have given me no hassles, but when I open the cups server on firefox, I can get no further than the home page. Clicking on any of the operations eg add a printer gives me '500 Internal Server Error.' Taking your advice, I downloaded the cups 1.3.11 pet but when I click on this I get a failed to install message. I don't know what to try next, any guidance much appreciated.

It sounds like your install has experienced some other corruption that is affecting CUPS. I can use Firefox as the browser for CUPS with no problems and I can successfully install CUPS 1.3.11 over top of the CUPS 1.4.3. This is in Lupu 5.1 with the latest patches.

Boot off the Live CD using the "puppy pfix=ram" option and try printing again.

Have upgraded to Lupu 511 on my IBM t22 laptop. Running live, I was able to successfully install my hp deskjet f2180 printer using cups 1.4.3. On making a save file, this install appeared to transfer successfully, however, after a couple of shutdowns and installation of other software including go open office 3.2, I lost printing and was back to the dreaded 'server error 500' when attempting to leave the cups home page. Installed 1.3.11 pet and ghostscript files as per this forum topic, and have got the 1.3.11 home screen up on both midori and firefox 3.6.8, but can get no further - clicking on any menu entry doesn't load anything - screen stays where it is.
Can't print, can't use cups server, haven't got a clue where to go from here.
(Tried setting up on live run then creating save file a couple more times, but always ended up losing printing.)

Any clues anyone? Is it possible to remove cups completely and start again?

A big thank you rcrsn51 for all your help and the time you must have spent mulling over my hassles. Tried the commands in your last post to no avail, so went to your suggestion of a fresh frugal and adding things till cups broke.
I have discovered the culprit - I have a Go Open Office 3.2 squash file which I downloaded a while ago from somewhere on the forum. Soon as I set bootup to load it, I got the 500 server error and no response from the cups home page - both 1.4.3 and 1.3.11. With this sfs removed, I've been able to set up printing in cups 1.4.3 with no hassles and have loaded all the programs etc onto my pupsave that I want. Interestingly, I've set up an old openoffice.org version 1.1.4 from way back in my puppy 2 days with no problems - this is not an sfs but is the actual files which I have on my hard drive and have linked into my save file to preserve storage space. I may yet convert it to an sfs to see if it breaks the system. I haven't a clue why my Go Open Office sfs does this - any ideas?
Thanks again for your help.

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot vote in polls in this forumYou cannot attach files in this forumYou can download files in this forum